Japanese Americans and World War II : Renunciation and Expatriation of United States Citizenship

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From November 1945 to July 1946, some 8,000 Japanese "aliens" and their families were deported to defeated Japan. Contrary to the general assertion that this group of people consisted mainly of "pro-Japanese Issues, Japanese immigrants who were excluded from naturalization at that time, there included were quite a few Niseis, native-born United States citizens, including a little less than 2,000 renunciants who had renounced the U.S. citizenship in 1944. Further, there were many Niseis, who stayed in Japan during the war and expatriated themselves either through serving for Japanese military, registering in koseki (family registration), and voting in the political elections in Japan. Many but not all of these individuals were later able to restore their citizenship, either through mass or individual lawsuits. The number of people who could regain their citizenship may well have been much smaller if it had not been for the efforts of an attorney, Wayne Collins, who represented the plaintiffs in a series of lawsuits during the late 1940s and early 1950s. While it is possible to trace the history of some of these legal efforts, much less is known about how these people spent their days in Japan and how they re-established their lives after returning to the United States. Through their experiences, correlated with some archival research, the dynamics of the relations between the nation-state and individuals will be examined.